Good question from Singapore - "Will likely purchase the headless column from you. Is it an easy install?
Could you send a photo of the column brushings?"
Good choice Lietz. So your questions - ease of install? As a step to learning about your new/old Leitz, here is one of the features of all Tiltalls and during this "quick tour", you will learn how easy (or not) it is to install my column. If you need to photograph, as an example, flowers, a small object, art or pages from a book, the Tiltall design allows easy [my opinion] reversal of the column - so that the head and camera can be used down between the extended legs. Let's refer to its exploded drawing. Maybe print this page for future reference.
Remove the stop ring [035] at the bottom of its column/head [stop ring/disk is threaded] and raise the column up and out of its "sleeve" [025, 029-033]. Turn column/head upside down and push up into sleeve from below and between the legs. But before you do that. . .
A caution here: there is a circle/tube of felt ["033.5", no number] or similar, just inside the lower edge of the column sleeve. Reach inside the sleeve to learn if the felt is well secured - sometimes with age, the edges [top or bottom] may have become loose. If loose, remove carefully and replace it with a circle of adhesive loop velcro [do not toss original, this is your template]. This lower bushing is for stabilization of the column and is a VERY necessary part - the circle should completely wrap the inside of the sleeve but not overlap. If you dont find any felt (or similar) inside the bottom edge of the sleeve - oh, no! gone missing already - replace using an experimental strip of paper to determine circle size of loop velcro.
As for the top bushing [024] better to take a look yourself - while you have the column removed [above], look just inside of the top of the column sleeve. There you see the bushing you are asking about laying in a channel. With the Leitz, my column usually works with the existing bushing. With the variation of age and original materials, your bushing may need to be renewed. Why? Have you checked if you tighten the handle that controls the rise and fall of the column through the sleeve, whether or not, you can still push the column down [or up], if so, then it is time to replace the top bushing with a new one. Unfortunately, no one at this time makes production bushings that fit the earlier Titalls - Marchioni, Leitz, Uniphot, etc. - it is really a do-it-yourself project best described in the instructions at the bottom of this entry here.
Another column travel tip - you can store your TEP handles for travel - at least a couple - inside the column by removing the stop ring at the base of the column and placing them inside - true even with Marchioni and early Lietz which are truly a stop ring rather than a disk [later Leitz, Uniphot] or disk/thread 1/4-20 [later Uniphot, Kinghome]. Good idea to put the head of the final handle towards the ring/disk.
